Thanks to ACB who pointed out this handless clock as were making our way to the baggage claim at the airport in Cleveland yesterday. 
While it feels like a lifetime ago, the recordings at the beginning of this week went pretty well – I found that I was able to relax and just make music. The pressure of the microphone being right in front of me added a nice adrenaline to everything and actually pushed me to give my all in every take, which turned out to be more of a fun challenge rather than a stressful nightmare.
Making music again at the University rekindled some of the musical fire within me. Almost all of my musical beginnings were there, from my childhood violin lessons, to youth orchestra and youth choir rehearsals during my teenage years, to my time as a voice major in college. I was reminded of how hungry I was to learn when I was a student there, and how I was so passionate and voracious in my quest to learn, study, and perform as many songs and concert pieces as I could. It was like I was swimming in lieder and chansons, luxuriating in the myriad of ways each composer set the texts. It was a time when I was beginning to understand the mechanics of how music worked and how much beauty and emotion it was capable of conveying, and I immersed myself in that wave of discovery. With some recitals that need to be programmed looming over my head, that refueling of the fire couldn’t come at a better time. More importantly, it was a great feeling to revisit my musical roots and be reminded of what brought me to devote my life to this art-form in the first place.
I returned from my childhood home to my adult home Tuesday, and the days at home before the tour flew by. I resumed immersing myself into my newfound New York home life, with much more success this time. I have discovered that it is vital to get myself out of the house early on, otherwise the day escapes me and I find too many items on my to-do list left undone, leaving me with a rather unpleasant feeling. The biggest drama of the week turned out to be a horrifying experience at a hair salon in Chelsea where apparently there was a miscommunication, and most of my hair was cut from my head. I’m still recovering.
The brief sojourn at the homestead ended with cooking a friend a Greek dinner for his 30th birthday and then a frantic packing episode before rushing to meet ACB for our journey to the airport. On the plane to our first stop in Ohio, I found myself wondering exactly what it is that I left behind that I need…it turns out it was my scarf.
How do you feel when you lean into the mirror and look really close at the skin of your face? I imagine that if most of the world is anything like me, looking closely in the mirror involves noticing every single imperfection (large pore, zit, blackhead, redness, and missed spots shaving) in the skin of your face and cringing. Then you realize you can’t cringe because that only makes matters worse.
Recording can be a lot like that – especially when recording something for public consumption. It is like examining oneself under a microscope and seeing EVERYTHING. The good, the bad, and the ugly. The most challenging thing about this is that it becomes really difficult to not monitor every single gesture, tone, rhythm, phrase, and vocalism during a session. It becomes difficult to follow the adage, “leap and the net will appear.”
Oddly enough, the net is already there thanks to modern technology. And the best part that is so easily forgotten is that if something goes wrong, we can always go back and fix it – a feat that is impossible in a live performance.
I’m looking forward to recording tomorrow. While I don’t have tons of experience doing it, the little I have has generally been a fun experience. It is recordings that really fertilized my interest in classical music when I was first discovering what it was to make music. They provided me with inspiration to become better and better and kept my dreams to be a professional musician alive. So it is exciting to be involved in a project like this – especially one in a familiar place where so many of those dreams began as well as with a new friend that I have been wanting to sing with for a while.
After a fiesty farewell (why is saying goodbye always SO hard? In a way, I guess that is a good thing), my darling Jeremy bought me these to wish me a Happy Valentine's day as I whisked out the door to catch a plane to Michigan today. I feel really guilty that I had to leave for work on Valentine's Day, even though it is a holiday that I find to be a little too Hallmark-y these days. Regardless, I am so lucky to be with someone so understanding and so exceptionally sweet and loving.
As I try to turn the page and begin the next chapter of my life, boldly stepping forward into my new world here in New York, I am forced, yet again, to take a trip down memory lane. The American people are in the heat of the presidential Primary, Super Tuesday has just passed, and we all look anxiously (and excitedly, in many cases) towards the future of our government, whereas our government would like me to take a look backward. I am being audited by the IRS.
Annoyance aside, as I go through all of the receipts that I held on to for dear life from that year, I am remembering various purchases and trips made. The most shocking part comes from remembering how much I paid for the large number of audition trips I made that year, and how few tangible results I ended up seeing from them. Out of 21 auditions in the US and Europe that I spent over $11,000 on planes, trains, hotels, and other travel expenses for, I received 6 offers (4 of which turned into actual work) and 1 grant. That is actually a very good rate of return, and I should even be grateful that I eventually made that money I invested back. Nonetheless, putting financial numbers to it is sobering. Aside from the one or two auditions that didn’t go well, I had a lot of “we like you” responses, but no actual bites for employment. Yet. The years have taught me that patience is a virtue (one of those 6 offers didn’t come until almost 2 years later), so I still hope. Also, it’s not like I have had any room to complain about not working yet (gratitude abounding here) – so obviously some of that investment paid off. Especially when I remember that the audition tours I took to Europe that year were my first. So, I choose to remain positive.
There are nice memories, too, like the incredible Falstaff that was my last show at HGO as a studio artist, or how I spent my first “free” summer in years, my two weeks at the Steans Institute at Ravinia making chamber music for the first time, my first gig out of the HGO Studio covering at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and starting to feel like a “grown-up” artist there, exchanging rings with Jeremy as the year drew to a close. While it was a scary year of transition, I find that I must concede that it was a really incredible year.
Now that I feel all warm and fuzzy again, I should stop procrastinating and get back to those faded receipts.
I was woken up this morning by the car horns blaring outside. I did the requisite morning pages, and then Jeremy made me a welcome home breakfast, which was sweet. After, he hopped in the shower and got ready to rush off to work. I sat on the couch and began to check email, continuing the ritual I go through every day. Jeremy then gave me a quick kiss goodbye and rushed out the door for a day of coachings. I watched him go, and then proceeded to start unpacking my suitcases full of the last four months-worth of my stuff.
Then I sat down, unsure of what to do.
At the beginning of October, which feels like forever ago, I was freaked out about being away and alone for so long. My therapist told me that it would all be ok - it was just a time that I needed to focus on my work. Now, I guess, is the time my focus has to shift back to a more balanced place - to my relationship with Jeremy, to my home, to my friends in New York, to getting re-settled into this city.
Today, I am finding this shift pretty overwhelming. I find myself struggling to find the answer to the question: After being away for so long, how do I be at home?
I am sitting in Houston Intercontinental Airport, hot, humid, and sweaty, with a stiff right shoulder from lugging about 10 pounds of carry-on luggage through the speckled-white halls of the Continental terminal. I’m a little tired from not getting quite enough sleep last night after a nice dinner with the cast after our final show last night. For the first time in over 5 years, I don’t know the next time I will be coming back down here.
After the show last night, I said some good-byes to the people who were in the audience: some guild members who have been so generous with their time and resources, Amanda – the incredible woman who has cut my hair for the last almost 6 years, as well as some of the staff at HGO who have become friends over the years. I also was greeted and congratulated by a some of the fresh-faced singers who have just arrived for the semi-finals of the Eleanor McCollum Competition – the competition from which the opera finds the singers who populate the Houston Grand Opera Studio. As I ended a chapter of my life down here, I wished these other young singers the best of luck for this week that could possibly be the beginning of a new, exciting, tumultuous, and Southern chapter for them. In a way, I felt like I saw a snapshot of myself from this time of year in 2002, nervous, excited, eager, awestruck, fiercely ambitious and full of unbelievable hope.
As is always the case as the end of any sojourn nears, I was unable to say my goodbyes to some loved ones who have become incredible and close friends over our years down here, but I take solace in my faith that I will see these people again sometime soon, either on vacation or when they visit New York. That’s the beauty of being a renewed New Yorker – people will always come to visit.
It’s been an incredible time here – as I did while I was in the Studio, I learned a great deal about stagecraft, Mozart, singing, and myself here as we tried to escape from Turkey/the Orient Express these past weeks. I consider myself so fortunate to have had this opportunity and this chance to properly say goodbye to my life for these past years in Houston.
Now, I turn the next page and begin a new chapter that begins with me returning my new home that I worked so hard to put together in September and haven’t seen for the past four months. It’s time to get settled anew and take the next steps forward. My first step will be to finally buy some curtains for our bedroom.
After the show tonight, I went out to the bar with some of my colleagues to unwind and allow the adrenaline from the show to seep from my system. Among this group of people was none other than Little Miss Bossy herself. As our conversation wandered from subject to subject, we eventually started discussing blogging, and I confessed to her that I really hadn’t felt so motivated this month to keep up the frequency of entries.
Now, at "home", unable to sleep because of the sheer volume of junky bar food that I just consumed, I find myself wondering why I have been so unmotivated. Part of it, as Miss Bossy and I were discussing this evening, is that it is easier to write about things while adventuring in Europe, because everything seems so different and interesting. It is a steep learning curve over there, simply because of the culture shock. The other difficulty is that my time here has been very challenging personally. Sometimes life seems like a spiral, in the sense that we come back constantly to the same points, but always from a slightly different vantage point. Houston is very much the place where I made the awkward transition from college student/kid to adult, and I have cringed numerous times over the past six weeks as various people and events have pulled forth the memories of the many personal stumbles I made in my effort to grow up here.
The show has been going so well – it is work that I am very proud of. The entire cast is excellent and have been incredible colleagues, and I can’t believe that we only have one show left. I feel like I am saying goodbye to Houston again, and it is surprisingly sad.
Sorry, this entry feels incredibly wandering and aimless to me. – I blame the chicken tenders from the Front Porch for my random sentimentality.
And then I spoke too soon. Right after writing how miraculous it was that we were all recovered from illness in time for opening, I woke up Friday morning feeling strange enough to spend the afternoon at the doctor’s office. I managed to start feeling better in time for the opening performance Friday evening, but then crashed back down again to the point that I had a full-blown sinus infection by the time Sunday’s matinee performance rolled around. I was so blocked up that I couldn’t really hear well out of my left ear, which made the performance an act of faith in many ways. It was the first time I had to perform ill, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m not sure where the strength and energy (or the voice, for that matter) came from to perform at our second performance, but I somehow managed to find enough of all of them to step into Pedrillo’s sweet, energetic shoes for the afternoon. More than one teacher (acting and singing) has told me on more than one occasion that technique is for when you are not feeling your best – it was a a lesson learned on Sunday, and I was so grateful to have my training on my side last weekend.
After practically everyone at the Houston Grand Opera catching what we are lovingly referring to as “the plague” over the last three weeks, the miraculous happened at our final dress rehearsal of Entführung Tuesday evening – everyone sang.
It was so nice to have everyone back on stage and in full voice after so many absences due to illness. Somehow, singing the quartet at the end of Act II (one of my most favorite operatic ensembles ever written) is not the same experience when it is only being sung by two people. Elise, our superhero assistant director, stepped in for practically every character at some point last week. The most amazing thing was that Elise knew practically every bit of the German dialogue by heart and was able to lipsync in all the ensembles – it was like watching a one-man version of The Abduction from the Seraglio.
This, just like any good working experience, has been a really great journey. Pedrillo, while he doesn’t present the vocal challenges that Lindoro does, is dramatically one of the most challenging characters I have come across in a while. Comedy is difficult in that it requires virtuosic specificity in terms of dramatic beats and timing while still being able to stay in the moment. I’ve learned a lot over the past couple of weeks, and I am really starting to have fun getting to step into Pedrillo’s shoes for each rehearsal.
When I was in the Studio here not so long ago, it was stressed to us repeatedly that we needed to show up properly prepared for the first day of rehearsal, for a variety of reasons. What I’ve come to realize over the past couple of weeks is that I mistook “prepared” for “perfection”, which resulted in a lot of impatience and frustration with myself early on in the rehearsal process here as I tried to learn to do things like make a martini and sing in rhythm at the same time. Luckily, hearing Elise repeat to me over and over, “this is what rehearsal is for” helped me figure that out.
To my wonderful and incredible colleagues, toi, toi, toi for a fantastic and fun opening tomorrow and thanks for such a great time these past few weeks.
In 1994, around this time of year, I had just turned 15 years old and was about to take my first audition as a singer for the Greenhills School spring musical - The Music Man. My parents dropped me off at the school at around 6:00pm for the auditions, and I spent the evening in the school lunchroom and lecture hall staring at the white bricks while I anxiously waited for my turn to sing sixteen bars of “76 Trombones” and some excerpts of the top tenor lines in the barbershop quartet music from The Music Man. There were two people hearing and casting us that night. One was the school’s choir director, Wendy, and the other was a lively man with a slightly raspy voice, short-cropped, spiky gray hair with a thin pony tail in back, glasses, a handle-bar mustache, and an infectious laugh – our theater director, Jim Posante.
Little did I know it at the time, but that evening of my knees shaking in the Greenhills lunchroom marked the beginning of my journey as a singer and shaped the entire trajectory of my life ever since. Jim decided to cast me as Jacey Squires in the Music Man’s barbershop quartet that spring, and I found my calling. It was with Jim that I learned what it took to transform a gymnasium into a theater, the basics of how to be on stage, what a thrill it was to step into the shoes of another character for the first time, and the exciting rush of singing under stage lights and in front of an audience full of people. It was with Jim that I found that I had a voice, and that I could do something with that gift.
Jim was more than a teacher or a director to me, though. It was through him that the theater kids in whom he nurtured the drama bug found a community and a niche. He is actually responsible, by drafting all of us to take part in the school’s theatrical productions, for helping me find the group of friends from my youth in Ann Arbor who have seen me through my hardest times, and that I consider to be practically family today. He was also the first out gay man that I got to know on a personal level and was a huge support for me as I took my own first steps out of the closet 13 years ago. Even after graduating from Greenhills, Jim was someone I counted on for support - he supported me while I was in college struggling to come out to my parents, and he continued to support me and cheer me on as I made the scary transition from college voice student to professional singer. We could always talk about anything, and I knew that in him I would always have a willing and helpful ear to bounce things off of.
Saturday, as I was in the middle of doing some yoga, warming up physically for the day’s rehearsal, I received a call that Jim was in critical condition after suffering from a massive stroke in the morning. He passed away at around 8:30 Sunday morning.
I’ve discovered that one of the hardest things about this operatic life on the road is that so often I can’t be there for the milestones of my loved ones – both the happy ones and the sad. So, I resort to saying goodbye here. Thank you, Jim, for helping me find both myself and my passion. You were a great guide and teacher, and an even better friend. I can’t help but think of you constantly as I spend most of this week in the theater, where you taught me so much about both the stage and life. Words can't express just how much you will be missed nor how much you were loved and valued.
I rang in my 29th year yesterday very quietly, as I had rehearsals to think about both yesterday and today on top of being partied out from Christmas and New Year’s, as I always am around this time of year. As I near 30, I am well aware that many people my age are well into the workforce and well out of school-mode. Regardless, among my closest friends who are non-singers, I am one of the only one of us out of school and not trying to finish a second or third degree. It is an odd sensation, therefore, to be back working in the place where I spent my “final” three years of training. I am a total believer in the idea that we never stop learning, especially as professional artists – there is always another level of things to discover. Still, I notice that I have the distinct desire to hear feedback about how much I have improved and how wonderful I am from these people from whom I learned so many of the tools that I have tried to perfect since leaving here. I find it is extra difficult to fight down my ego because of that expectation and desire, and it is proving to be quite the mental challenge when it comes to my work. I get flustered more easily, and it is harder to focus on the task at hand sometimes. There is something about returning to the place where I cut my operatic teeth that makes me search for a level of approval that I wouldn’t necessarily look for elsewhere. I think it has something to do with the fact that apprenticeships are about planning for the future as much as they are about honing one’s craft. The reality is that when it comes down to it, this is a job, just like any other, and it is the task at hand that is the priority – not my development and career trajectory. It makes me wonder how much more I would have learned as a Studio artist here had I not been so focused on the future and gave more of my attention to the tasks that were at hand then.
Again, time seems like it is flying – it is the eve of 2008 – yet another event of the holiday season that has apparently come flying out of nowhere.
The turn of the year seems like it would be a natural time to take a moment to take stock and recap the events of the last twelve months, but with the pace that life has taken lately, it seems that I will have to press the pause button on life for the moment in order to review – something which I would like to do.
My highlights of 2007 were:
- The feeling of homecoming after moving (back) to New York and falling in love with our new place
- The satisfaction and pride of meeting the challenge that Lindoro posed and learning a great deal from him
- The sense of feeling changed after my three-month sojourn in France
- The excitement of seeing two of my best friends enter the world of parenthood and welcoming their beautiful daughter into the world
- The fun and sense of teamwork while working with the group in Chicago on Il ritorno d’Ulisse
- The joy and inspiration of my first summer at the Marlboro Music Festival
- The relief and excitement of buying my new Sony Vaio laptop
- The thrill of sinking my teeth into Jonathan in Saul for the first time
- The love and emotional warmth of getting to spend a wonderful (albeit too short) Christmas with my family and loved ones in Ann Arbor
Overall, it feels like it was a year of quiet growth and transition. The process of deciding to move to New York took up much of it along with a steady stream of interesting work and some intense challenges at the end. There was so much to be grateful for, and in 2008 there is so much to look forward to.
All the best to everyone for much happiness, health and fulfillment in 2008!
As I began singing my first aria (the one with 24 high b-flats, 3 high c’s, and tons of fast notes) at the start of last night’s show, I noticed that it actually felt easy. I thought back to all of the lessons I have had on this role, slaving over each b-flat and every coloratura passage in my lessons, trying over and over again to keep them in line and properly supported and placed, wondering how I was ever going to manage to do this on stage in front of a theater full of people. As yesterday's show went on (our 10th performance in the tour), I began to realize that I have learned a lot during my time here in A sampling of the things that I have learned over the past three months, ranging from things vocally technical, things musical, life lessons, to random miscellany:
For days now, Jeremy has been asking me if I need him to buy any of my Christmas presents for me so I don’t have to lug them back across the It dawned on me yesterday that Christmas is merely a week away.
The fact that this is a holiday season has just not sunk in yet. This week has me immersed in performing L’italiana 3 times, singing two auditions (one of which was yesterday in London), trying to cram the dialogue and music for Die Entführung as dem Serail into my head before rehearsals start in Houston next Wednesday, packing to go home, and then flying to NYC and repacking for another 6 weeks on the road. I will spend 26 hours on the European train system this week alone (my absolute favorite mode of travel - as long as they are not on strike or being vandalized), as well as at least 15 hours on planes to my various destinations, not to mention the time spent waiting in airports, which will hopefully be kept to a minimum with no delays. Somehow, I forgot about Christmas shopping amidst all of that. I call it happily living in denial.
The one thing that disturbs me about all of this is that I am quite happy doing every single one of these things. It begs the question: Am I becoming addicted to my work?
In truth, I’m not in bad shape – I only have a couple of people left to get things for, and hopefully I’ll be able to find appropriate things here without a problem. With the Caen Christmas Market a block away, I should be ok.
Standing on the stage of Hill Auditorium at the University of Michigan last week felt like I had gone through a time warp and suddenly found myself in the midst of my own version of Back to the Future. The last time I had performed there, I was a senior in college singing a solo with the University Choir. Here I was again, with an excellent soprano with whom I sang fairly frequently while at As surreal as it felt, the performance went well, and people were very moved by the new piece. At the concert, we premiered the orchestral version of a song cycle written by one of the composers on the faculty the UM, Evan Chambers, and then the University orchestra played an amazing performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring to finish off the evening. It was great to see so many familiar faces in the audience: family, friends, and former teachers. It’s so rare that I get to perform for people I know, and it was a real treat to visit with them for a bit afterwards.
I’m back in
Even more exciting is that I will actually get to sleep in my own bed one night next week after we put our L'italiana to rest (who knew I would miss
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This last week in
Our director, Sandrine, told us that even though La Maison de la Culture d’Amiens is a very important performing venue in
The next stop on our tour is in Caen, but first I have a bit of a break from our surrealistic Algiers and am taking a musical trip to 19th century New Hampshire graveyard for my first of three premieres this season.
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While in
